More Inspiration: Snow

Because, really-  who couldn’t use a little more inspriation right now?

Inspiration: Snow

I went to visit snow and play in it last week, and the timing couldn’t have been better. After many months of drought, we’ve been blessed with precipitation. Here on the coast, it’s been rain and more rain. In the mountains I was greeted by a blanket of pristine, dry, sparkling snow. My daughter and I went snowshoeing, and I brought along my camera. The landscape reminded me of my “White” series, and I was totally inspired. I’ll post a few more of these this week… I think they may inspire a few new paintings….

New Work #9: nest paintings

More new work, finished yesterday. These are pint-sized paintings. I enjoyed working on some small pieces over the holidays. 

Both paintings are acrylic and mixed media on canvas. They are posted for sale over at my artspan website. Enjoy!

Art Marketing Weekend

 I just spent the weekend in Hollister attending an art marketing workshop given by Alyson Stanfield. I met some great people, and soaked up lots of good advice and inspiration. If you have an opportunity to go to one of Alyson’s workshops, I highly recommend it. I especially recommend it if you are ambiguous about technology and what it can do for your art career. She gives a ton of information about how to use blogging, social networking, email, and websites to increase awareness of your work.

It’s true: We would all rather be in our studios, but this workshop impressed upon me the importance of the time spent sharing the results of those hours spent in the studio. That is why I started this blog- because making art is a solitary experience (mostly), and I feel like blogging has helped me feel more public about it, and helped me connect with other artists.

A lot of other artists at the workshop worried about not having something to say in a blog. It is true- a blog needs a steady stream of topics. A good blog has a focus. I try to focus on my process, and sharing new work. My favorite blogs keep me coming back because they have something to offer: inspiring art, tutorials, advice, art world information, good links, or an interesting perspective. Notice I listed “inspiring art” first. I like to see art that makes me think, or is beautiful, or new.

So what about you? What keeps you coming back to a blog? What would you like to see more of in art blogs? If you are a blogger, what keeps you blogging?

New Work #8: more winter wax

We are having a delicious, drizzly February day here, and the starlings outside are making quite a racket. My wind chimes are going a little crazy. I’m just enjoying it all, taking care of family life, and baking ginger cookies (because that’s what I do when it drizzles outside!) Also, sharing the latest “Winter” piece, above. I feel like I’ve finally struck a balance between complexity and simplicity in these latest pieces. I am enjoying letting the wax be what it is, not fighting or trying to overly control it. For instance, when I first started adding the tiny white dot areas, it frustrated me to no end that I couldn’t get them all to look uniform. Some of them are big, some small, some stick up and others are flat. And it’s all dependent on too many factors- like if my pallet is heating up or not (it’s on a thermostat, so there are slight variations in temperature as it cycles on and off), or how long I hold the brush on the pallet to warm it up again, or how many dots I try to make before returning to my pallet (which, of course, has everything to do with my mood and patience that day). Etc, etc. But then I just gave up. It is what it is. And I fell in love with the variation. Now, I just let it be, and I think it is one of my favorite things about these little paintings. Sometimes, acceptance can truly transport us to new places!

New Work #7: Winter

Some new work coming out of my studio lately. I’ve started a new series- a variation on the “white noise” series. I’m calling this one “Winter”. Most days, I take a walk with my dog in the fields near my house. We live about a five minute walk to the bluffs that line the coast here in Half Moon Bay, and we are lucky enough to have fields along the bluffs that are open to the public. Every season has it’s own way of defining the landscape, and here in coastal California, we don’t get snow. We don’t get ice. We get wind. In late fall, the wind becomes fierce, and pummels the tall, dead, silvery grasses, flattening them to the ground. The only things left standing are the sturdy remains of flowering weeds and herbs, sometimes with seed pods left intact. It makes a striking landscape- the black, barren remnants of last year’s plants stand like black calligraphic marks against the pale, flat grasses.

So, I’ve been inspired to try to communicate some of this in these new paintings. These two are from drawings of seed pods that I found in my yard, and they look a bit like seaweed to me. I’ll post more of this work in the next few days, so be sure to check back.